Notes – For the gx_100. Set during season one, a short while after Manjoume's duel against Asuka.
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It wasn't as if the distance bothered him, he was just somewhat surprised by it. Ever since he had first become a student of Duel Academia, Jun Manjoume had been the best male in his year at Obelisk Blue. So he thought that, as the overall best student of Obelisk Blue, Ryo would have wanted to have a lot to do with him.
He didn't.
Ryo never made any effort to go out of his way to talk to Manjoume like he did with Asuka. Given Manjoume never went out of his way to talk to Ryo either, but why should he? If someone was worthy of being around Manjoume they should approach him so he could judge them personally.
Annoyingly, it didn't seem to bother Ryo what Manjoume thought of him. Even when Manjoume went into the Osiris Red dorm and started hanging around with Ryo's little brother and that Juudai kid whom Ryo so obviously approved of it didn't make any difference.
Then there was the matter of the other elite student, who also had issues with distance when it came to people in general. He was however, on the opposite end of the scale to Ryo, and wanted to be around people all the time. Manjoume could have done with a bit more distance from Fubuki.
Not that he had any sort of dislike for him, Manjoume admired Fubuki's skills at charming women to the point where it was unhealthy, but recently Fubuki had failed to set him up with Asuka. He was still sore about that.
Which was the other problem with Fubuki – if you had a love life he wanted to know about it. If you didn't have a love life then he wanted to help you get one. The self-proclaimed Love Magician seemed to think that everyone's romance was in need of his assistance.
So there he had it. The two elite students of Obelisk Blue. One gave him so much distance it was hard to believe they were on the same continent and the other gave him so little distance they were a few feet short of trading cards. And Manjoume didn't trade cards. Not even using those expensive cards his brothers felt he needed.
Summing them both up Manjoume had to admit that being given a lot of space was preferable. Despite being insulted by Ryo's lack of interest at least Ryo wasn't bombarding him with failed schemes to set him up on dates.
It seemed that Ryo and Fubuki were supposed to be quite close to each other. Or at he'd heard that they were. He'd never actually seen them talking together. But maybe if he asked Ryo about the situation he could get some advice about how to remove an obsessive Love Magician from your trail.
Ryo wasn't hard to find. If you hung around the lighthouse long enough eventually he'd turn up. And Manjoume had taken long enough to get there that he didn't have to wait, the older boy was already stood there. Thankfully on his own, as Manjoume would have been a nervous wreck if he'd had to talk to him while Asuka was at his side.
"Kaiser?" He addressed, walking over.
Looking over, Ryo gave him a nod of acknowledgement but didn't speak.
"I need to talk to you about something that's been bothering me," he pressed on, trying not to be put off by the stare.
"If it concerns Asuka then I believe you've already made your thought very clear on that matter," said Ryo, startling Manjoume with his response, "My feelings for her are that of a brother to a sister. But you should accept she does not like you in that way either."
A pang of annoyance. But Manjoume let that last comment slide for now.
"It's not about her, it's about her brother," he corrected.
There was a pause before Ryo answered, "If you're interested in him than he's far from hard to get a date with. You really don't need my advice in that area."
"No!" Manjoume was starting to understand why he didn't talk to Ryo, the guy was infuriating, "It's completely the opposite of that! I want rid of him!"
"You don't have to shout," said Ryo, in a possibly intentional effort to anger Manjoume further.
"Well can you help or not? Because if not then I don't want to waste time hanging around with you," Manjoume seethed.
"I know how I can get rid of him, but I can't say whether the same methods would work for you," said Ryo calmly.
"I'm leaving then!" shot Manjoume, turning on his heels and walking straight into Fubuki.
Pulling back, he started to stammer out excuses, though Fubuki looked all too amused for a guy who'd just heard someone else asking how to get rid of him.
"You wound me deeply Manjoume," Fubuki said, in a tone of mock-hurt, "If you didn't want my help with Asuka all you had to do was say so and I would have left you to your own methods."
"Yeah, well it's too late now, she's never going to like me with or without your help," the other hissed, "So I'd rather you just go mess up someone else's love life now."
"But I haven't finished with yours yet. Or Ryo's for that matter."
Behind him, Manjoume heard a footstep being taken backwards. Perhaps Ryo was as nervous of Fubuki as everyone else was after all.
"I think we're both content with being single," said Manjoume cautiously. He couldn't read the Kaiser's mind, but he really didn't need to on that point.
Shaking his head dramatically, Fubuki corrected, "No one is happy being alone. Especially not two hopelessly lost causes such as yourselves." They both took offence that that.
"What do you think we need then?" Ryo spoke up, acidly.
Glancing from one to the other, Fubuki winked.
"A little bit of company."
"We had that before you arrived," Ryo pointed out, ignoring that Manjoume had been on the verge of leaving.
"But you two are both so… awkward. I'm not saying you couldn't do it together, but you'd need a third wheel," replied Fubuki wisely.
"When has anyone ever needed a third wheel? Isn't that a term for getting in the way?" asked Manjoume, who was currently simmering down from rage to just confusion.
"Some people are skilled at getting in the way," Fubuki said, and neither of them doubted he was good at doing that.
Walking over, he put an arm over each of their shoulders.
"So, let's go get you both some help from the Love Magician."
Manjoume guessed that this would do nothing to shorten the distance between him and Asuka.
He guessed right.